Homeschool and s*x education...?

Question

I saw this question in the teaching section:

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TITLE: Any good ideas??

For a College class, I need to do a presentation on how to use a condom. And I need to teach it as if I were teaching it to elementary children. Any ideas beside bringing a condom and a banana? Thanks!

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It got me wondering what approach / philosophy other homeschoolers have in regards to s*x education.

For us it has been pretty easy from a pure biology stand point because my mom (grandma) lives just down the road and has a farm and raises goats (yep, we are goat herders!)... Anyway, we've been around the farm animals enough to get the biology perspective - procreation and live births (we always dramatically say that "we don't know nothin' bout birthin' no babies!)...

So... more than just biology discussion, I have "how to be a gentleman" discussions with my son...

Any thoughts to share on this?

Answer 1

My sister covered s*x ed this year with her only daughter. She used a program called Passport to Purity. I plan on purchasing it next year to do with my kids. It gives a bunch of activities to do with your children that are designed to make them think about what happens to their bodies when they have s*x and why they should stay pure for their husbands/ wives. She did things like burn matches and then try to re-strike them (the lesson was that you can't have it back). They broke a glass to symbolize the heart being broken after a break up. She said it really made it easy to teach about s*x and that it took the uncomfortable subject and made it fun.

EDIT: I found that having two more kids really opened up my oldest daughters eyes as to some of the basics as well.

Answer 2

Well, first of all, if anyone taught my elementary child (when he was there) how to use a condom, they'd have a pretty p-o'd Mama Bear to deal with.  There is absolutely no reason that 8 year olds need to even know what a condom is, much less how to use one.

My son has always been interested in science and medicine, and started asking when he was little how babies get in and out of mama's tummy.  (I'm talking preschool here.)  When he was that small, we told him that God made a special way for the baby, and that was that.

When he was 8, my husband sat down and had "the talk" with him.  We felt he was old enough to understand, and had been asking about it for long enough that we were pretty sure he was ready.  It took about an hour, he understood the biology and the ethics of it, and that was that.

Since then, anytime he has a question, he knows he can come to either one of us.  He knows that s*x is something that waits until he's much older (he's 10 now); now is the time for him to be a kid.  He doesn't want to cut his own childhood short by pretending to be an adult until he's ready.

He also knows that a lot of the kids he'll come across may have a different view of s*x than he does, and he's fine with that.  He doesn't feel the need to engage in any activity before he's ready to impress "the guys"...if they're not impressed enough with him as he is to be his friend, then he's not terribly interested in being friends with them.

We do teach purity/abstinence, both out of life experience and out of our beliefs, but we don't sugar-coat anything.  He knows exactly what the pros and cons of each are, and he's chosen purity on his own.  He feels that s*x is something that is too important to be wasted on someone he might not even know a month later.

Good question :-)

Answer 3

Well, besides biology lessons, my parents just waited till I had questions.  Every kid will have questions eventually so why push it on them at a young age?  It only makes them grow up too fast.  My parents figured when we were ready, we would ask find answers, or simply ask them for answers.

Answer 4

...since when is a condom hard to figure out? I never understood that. They showed us in a s*x ed meeting in the girls dorm using a cucumber. It was well meaning but a little unnecessary. It's a rubber, not a rubix cube. I think we'd have figured it out on our own.

     We're very frank about s*x and sexuality. We opened the conversation at a simple level when our daughter was little. She asked, we answered. Where do babies come from? Why are you buying pads? Why is Daddy getting a vasectomy? The conversation grows as she does. I've never been afraid to draw a line though. I say, "I'd prefer to tell you when you’re older. Do you still want to know?" She's only crossed that line once or twice. She trusts me now when I tell her she's not ready to know. At 10, she has a better knowledge of s*x than I did. She's been a foster sister and that means she's seen the effects of sexual abuse and rape up close and personal. She loves the musical Rent and is certainly more aware of people living with sexually transmitted diseases than I was at her age. (Even if you think you don't, you know people living with HIV, HPV or Herpes.) I read in the v****a Monologues 5 years in a row and she's been with me at a few rehearsals. While I am not overly concerned with chastity from a religious perspective, I am vocal about my decision to be monogamous and why I made that decision. I stress cause and effect and let people's choices speak for themselves. For us, responsibility and respect is the most important thing to know when it comes to s*x. I'm especially vocal about reproductive responsibility. The discussion is always open, ever growing and happens naturally.

Answer 5

giggidy just bring in some family guy episodes with quagmire that is how i learned all i know http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=jC9MgajqYB...

Answer 6

I've always used the "Learning About s*x" series from Concordia house publishers, it starts out real simply at the Preschool to early elementary with a book titled, "Why boys and Girls are different"  and goes on through the High School level, all from a Christian perspective.  Of course, we've had plenty of experience with farm animals too, and the usual biology stuff, but I found that by introducing the book series above early on, I managed to portray the topic as something that we didn't have to be afraid to talk about as a family.  So when there is an issue that needs discussing, no one needs to be embarrassed.

Answer 7

I've grown up on a pastoral property; I have parents who breed both cattle and horses; I'm one of nine kids; my earliest memory is of helping my dad to AI (artificially inseminate) a bunch of heifers...

Nah, s*x education is not a problem for our family. *smiles*